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Shabistari, Mahmud - The Gulshan-i raz - The sea is being and speech its shore
Identifier
001486
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Garden of Mystery – The Gulsham-i raz of Mahmud Shabistari
The sea is being and speech its shore
Shells are words, pearls are heart knowledge
Thousands of royal pearls are tossed from each wave
Revealed in texts, traditions and prophecies
Thousands of waves surge from it every moment
Yet it is never made less by even one drop
The existence of Knowledge comes from that deep sea
Its pearl is nestled in a covering of sounds and words
When inner meanings descend to this realm
They must reveal themselves in allegory and metaphor
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I have heard that in springtime’s month of Naisan
Oysters swim to the surface in the Sea of Oman
From oceanic slopes under that sea they swim
To float at the surface with their mouths open
A mist then rises, from the sea to the sky
And rains down by the command of the most high
Raindrops fall into the open shells
Which close their mouths tightly around them
With full heart, they sink back into the depths
Each raindrop, nurtured in its shell, becomes a pearl
When a sea diver plunges into those depths
He retrieves from them resplendent pearls
Your body is like the shore, Existence like that sea
The mist is grace, rain is the science of the Names
In this great ocean, mind is the diver
Whose pouch holds a hundred precious pearls